Travel Bug For Tourists, a Flight to Bargains

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IT’S New York City. It’s Christmas shopping time. Everything’s half-price, from rings at Tiffany to razors at the airport newsstand.

If you’re a potential visitor from Europe, or in fact from many other places overseas, that constitutes an effective sales pitch this year.

For international shoppers, America is where the Christmas shopping bargains are, in large part because of the no-longer-so-almighty dollar.

Several overseas airlines and charter-flight operators have been specifically promoting New York City as a Christmas shopping Mecca, luring hordes of bargain hunters, especially from Britain, where tourism to the United States has otherwise been lagging for years.

“We’ve had promotions running encouraging people to go to New York to shop because of the favorable exchange rate, and demand has been huge,” said Lawrence Hunt, the chief executive officer of Silverjet, a British discount all-business-class airline. Silverjet even hired “shopping concierges” to send e-mail messages to passengers listing tips about discounts and deals in New York.

Last Tuesday afternoon, Louise Richards, a tourist and Christmas shopper from Hampshire, England, paused during lunch at a noisy restaurant in Midtown Manhattan.

She was with two women friends accompanying her on a whirlwind shopping expedition to New York. Lunch was quick because “we have to go back out and hit the shops. It really is an opportunity to buy things for half what they cost in London,” she said.

The three flew on Silverjet — paying about $2,000 each for round-trip, business-class travel — on a four-day shopping trip. They left London Luton Airport Monday morning, and were at their hotel in Manhattan by midafternoon. “That was marvelous because we were rested and we still had the rest of Monday to reconnoiter and shop,” Ms. Richards said.

New York retailers are courting the tourists with special deals. “Yesterday, we went into Bloomingdale’s and they give you a visitor’s card that allows you about 10 percent off on many purchases, so at the end of the day, you’ve done remarkably well. At home, you spend £250 ($518) for a pair of designer jeans, and here they’ll cost you $200, so that’s less than half price,” she said.

For many items like designer clothes and electronics, prices in the United States are routinely cheap, regardless of the exchange rate. Each year, American Express Travel surveys prices in 10 major world cities. New York tops the list for value.

In New York, American Express said, using the British pound for comparison, an Apple iPod costs an average of £168, compared with £252 in Paris, £245 in Milan and £219 in London.

But the weak dollar adds more value to a transaction when the buyer is armed with British pounds or euros. One pound was worth $2.07 last week, compared with $1.93 at the same time last year (and $1.54 at the same time in 2005). One euro was worth $1.48 last week, compared with $1.32 this time last year.

Even after shopping till dropping, many European visitors arrive at the airport for departure with money to spend, said Janice Holden, the vice president for marketing for the expansive retail shopping concourses at Kennedy International Airport Terminal 4, where about 85 percent of the traffic is international.

Concession sales at Terminal 4 were 20 percent higher for the 12 months ended Oct. 31, and up 30 percent at the two duty-free shops, she said. Ms. Holden said she heard that a woman from Glasgow spent $10,000 in the terminal last week.

Many visitors have told her that the amount they saved on Christmas shopping more than covered the cost of flying to New York and staying at a hotel. “So then it’s a free holiday,” she said.

One shop at Terminal 4 doing an especially brisk foreign-visitor business is Bijoux Terner, with 500 international locations, including many airports. The stores sell jewelry and fashion accessories — all at the same price.

In continental Europe, Bijoux Terner shops advertise “Luxury at 15 Euros.” At Terminal 4, everything in the Bijoux Terner store is $10.

“If not for themselves, some visitors are definitely in there buying for their secretaries, housekeepers, the person watching their dog,” Ms. Holden said. “You walk in there with the fifty bucks or the equivalent, and you come out with five very nice gifts.”